Mia Couto - The Tuner of Silences

— Remember that shot in the shoulder?

We were baffled: suddenly, a look of panic dominated the soldier’s face. He tried to slip away, but the barrel of the gun pinned him in place.

— Remember, don’t you?

A trickle of blood appeared: his old wound had re-opened. The soldier had been hit again by the bull1et of old. Silence reigned, and then Aproximado attempted to intervene:

— For the love of God, Silvestre!

— Shut your trap, you useless cripple. .

I’ll never quite believe what happened next, no matter how often I recall it. With astonishing serenity, my brother Ntunzi stepped forward and asserted:

— Give me the gun, Father. I’ll go.

— You?

— Give me the gun, I’ll kill the Portuguese woman.

— You?

— Didn’t you send me to learn how to kill, Father? Well, I’m going to kill.

Silvestre circled his son, venting surprise, oozing suspicion.

— Zachary!

— Yes, Silvestre?

— Go with him. I want a report. .

— Don’t involve Ernie in this, Father. I’ll go alone.

With a dreamlike slowness, my father handed the gun to his son. Ntunzi vanished into the dark. We listened to his determined footsteps fade away, swallowed by the sand. After a time, we heard a shot. My whole body was shaken by weeping. Silvestre’s threat was immediate:

— Any more tears, and I’ll kick you to pieces.

Sobs tumbled from my breast, and my arms quivered as if my inner being were being wracked by some deep schism.

— Be quiet!

— I ca. .I can’t.

— Stand up straight and sing!

I stood to attention, in readiness. But my breast was still overflowing, heaving.

— Sing!

— But Father, sing what?

— Sing the national anthem, then!

— I’m sorry, Father, but. . what nation’s anthem?

Silvestre Vitalício looked at me, shocked at my question. His chin trembled, stunned by the simple logic of what I had asked. My only nation was the one we had left far behind, the house where I was born. And that nation’s flag was blind, deaf and mute.

Ntunzi’s deranged eyes squinted at the room and his voice was unrecognizable when he blustered his confession:

— Tonight it was the broad’s turn. Tomorrow, I’m going to kill him.

— Ntunzi, please, put the gun down.

But he fell asleep hugging it to him. That night I couldn’t sleep, beset by fear. I peered out at the haunted house. There was no sign of a lamp. The job had been done. I looked up at the sky to distract myself, my fear turning into panic. Up in the heavens there were no fixed heavenly bodies: all the stars were cascading, all the lights incandescent. On the darkened wall where Ntunzi had recorded the days passing, all the stars had fallen. Now, no stars shone in Jezoosalem, either down below or in the sky above.

I closed the window abruptly. Our world was crumbling away like a dry clod of earth.

It was already late afternoon and none of us had been out of the house. A sultriness suddenly made itself felt. First came the smell: the smell of a dead body, eaten up by the heat, chewed over by the sun. My father sent me out to see. Could it be the Portuguese woman who was beginning to decompose?

— Is she already smelling, so soon? Zachary, go out and bury the Portagee woman.

She shouldn’t be left to rot thereabouts, attracting the big cats. Zachary went out and I overcame my lethargy and followed him. I was going to come face to face with death, stab myself with its cruel truth. Vultures circling in the sky led us out to the back. Ntunzi had dragged the body quite near to our house. And there we saw the corpse surrounded by voracious birds, squabbling and avoiding each other, hopping ridiculously away from their mutually traded ferocities. When Zachary got there, the flock gave way, and I saw the sight with my own eyes: the donkey, Jezebel, my old man’s faithful lover, lay torn to pieces by the vultures.

The image of the donkey’s mangled body drained my sleep all night long. I couldn’t imagine how much blood a furry creature can contain. It was as if the jenny had turned into a river of red waters, pumped out by a heart that was larger than the earth itself.

Next day, my father went to bury Jezebel alone. First thing in the morning, his spade was already busy in his hands. We offered our help from afar.

— I don’t want anyone here —he yelled.

Nor did we want to get too near. Silvestre’s look was vengeful. Zachary walked round our house, his rifle at the ready, watching my father.

— No one go near him —the soldier warned.

He spoke as if about a rabid dog. Despite the warning, I decided to approach the place where Silvestre was guarding the dead donkey. Night had fallen and there by the grave he remained, toe to spade. I advanced, stepping lightly out of respect for his vigil, and coughed quietly before asking:

— Aren’t you coming in to sleep, Father?

— I’m staying right here.

— All night?

He nodded. I sat down carefully, some way off. I remained silent, knowing that there would be no more words spoken. But conscious too that no silence could fill that moment or any other moment ever again. In the distance, we could hear Aproximado hammering on metal as he repaired the damaged vehicle. Ntunzi was helping Uncle and a beam of torchlight helped them both.

My father was the picture of grief. Defeated, solitary, disbelieving in everything and everyone. Without raising his head, he murmured:

— Son, give me your hand.

I thought I hadn’t heard him properly. I remained impassive, keeping my astonishment to myself, until once again Silvestre implored:

— Don’t leave me here all alone.

I lay down and fell asleep to the rhythm of the hammering coming from the improvised workshop. For me, that episode marked the end of Jezoosalem. Maybe that was why my sleep was disturbed by a nightmare. I was assailed by a vision that kept returning, no matter how hard I tried to chase it away: next to me, between myself and my father, a huge snake had settled itself. It was inert, as if asleep, and my old man, lying next to it, contemplated it with a look of fascination.

— Come here, son, come and get yourself bitten.

A snake isn’t an animal: it’s a muscle with teeth, a legless centipede with a stomach in the middle of its neck. How could Silvestre Vitalício be so enamoured with such a lowly animal?

— Get bitten?

— I’ve already been stung.

— I don’t believe you, Father.

— See how swollen my hand is, how its colour has changed. My hand, my dear Mwanito, already belongs to the race of the dead.

It was a hand without an arm, without veins, without nerves. A piece of body without family or familiarity. Silvestre added: